Item Details

title

It Starts with Us: Designing a Value-Added Approach to Archival Instruction.

author

May, Rebecca

author

Shields, Kathy

abstract

In this article, a public services archivist and a research and instruction librarian for history will describe the process of developing a credit-bearing course on archives and primary source research at a mid-size liberal arts university. We explore literature related to the role of archivist as educator and pedagogical approaches to teaching with archives and primary sources. We then describe the iterative process of developing and revising our course structure and assignments over three semesters through reflecting on the experiences that were successful and those that fell flat. In our current version, which we taught in fall 2022, we started the design process by focusing on the value that we add to the classroom, and then we extended that to the value that students bring. Our assignments and class activities allowed us to share our expertise, but then gave students the opportunity to gain new skills while also applying their own knowledge and experiences. For the final project, students selected materials from our university archives to tell a story about the student experience at the university in a previous era and reflected on its connection to their contemporary experience. We also share plans for the next version of this course, including pedagogical approaches that we hope to integrate.

subject

library instruction; credit-bearing courses; archives; pedagogy

citation

18 (volume)

date

2024-08-05T16:01:48Z (accessioned)

2024-08-05T16:01:48Z (available)

2024 (issued)

identifier

May, R. & Shields, K. (2024). “It Starts with Us: Designing a Value-Added Approach to Archival Instruction.” Journal for the Society of North Carolina Archivists, 18, 23-40. (citation)

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/109773 (uri)

language

en_US (iso)

publisher

Society of North Carolina Archivists

source

Journal for the Society of North Carolina Archivists

type

Article